By Emilie Gruben.
“I have every right to feel angry.”
“Why shouldn’t I voice my frustration? It’s not like it’s my fault things turned out like this.”
These sound pretty dramatic, right? Selfish, rude. Pointed. Many adjectives come to mind, but none of them seem like any you would want to have said about yourself. More often than not, though, that’s just when they could be used.
A heart of joy. A heart of humility. Patience, kindness, goodness, and love. In hard circumstances and disappointment, a heart of gratefulness is above these. A countenance of gratitude is the root of all these other attributes. Being grateful in circumstances provides the means to “come to terms.” In order to move forward. To begin the process of understanding God’s plan. To be grateful is the first step. But what happens when we don’t know how to take that step?
In previous articles, such as Suffering is a Gift, or Forgiveness and Holding Grudges as a Christian, we went through a few ways to recognize blessings in grief, chaos, and hurt. To review, a few of them we are as follows…
1: Acknowledging that God is in control of whatever the situation is. The Lord does not make people suffer, or give them pain. He does not give cancer or heartbreak, but allows the sin to take hold. We have free will. We have the ability to sin, to make our own choices, to follow Him, or to reject Him. If we did not have this choice, then there would be no means for us to sin or make a wrong choice. This free will is different from the control that God holds over the world and every individual. Isaiah 55:8-9 reads “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are my ways higher than your ways. And My thoughts than your thoughts.” Verse 11 goes on to say “So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”
2: Finding confidence and assurance in the sovereignty of God’s plans. As David’s Psalms always lead back to his trust in God’s provision and safety, we can find assurance in the Word. No matter what circumstances arise, we find a hopeful assurance. God is in control, and we have moved on to being confident in that admittance of dependance. Deuteronomy 31:6, reads “Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the Lord your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.” This assurance is reiterated in verse 8, of the same chapter.
3: Trusting God’s plan with patience. Psalm 40:1-5 tells of this patience, waiting on the Lord and His plan with faithful hopes for His providence. “I waited patiently for the Lord; And He inclined to me, And heard my cry. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, Out of the miry clay, And set my feet upon a rock, And established my steps.
“He has put a new song in my mouth— Praise to our God; Many will see it and fear, And will trust in the Lord. Blessed is that man who makes the Lord his trust,
And does not respect the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies. Many, O Lord my God, are Your wonderful works.
“Which You have done; And Your thoughts toward us Cannot be recounted to You in order; If I would declare and speak of them, They are more than can be numbered.” No matter the circumstance, God is worthy of our patient trust.
We have the free will to make our own decisions and choices. The outcomes are determined by ourselves. God has given us the intelligence and freedom to make such things our reality, all while ordained by His sovereign hand. We see how He has control, and how we should respond biblically. We know how and when to act as He instructed. To know is one thing, and to act is another. Upon this knowledge, we can begin to act in gratitude.
1: There is always goodness. Your day could have been the biggest disaster you have lived through, yet there is something to praise God for. From the fact that you lived to see another day (Ps. 118:24), or lived through the day-there is a need for gratitude. From the very thoughts of dismay, there is a need to rejoice. You have breath in your lungs, you have feeling in your body, thoughts in your mind, and want or contentment in your soul. How do each of these go unnoticed when we are distracted? There are so many reasons that God is to be praised. There is always goodness worthy of gratitude.
2: The blessing of simply living our days should be enough to render us speechless in the face of God, yet all the greater is the reality of His gift of redemption. We should live with a thankful heart because of the power of the Father, setting us free from sin and death (Rom. 8:1-2). This gift which we have received and accepted as our own, is one that should define our lives. We have become new creations in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17), and are now to be separated from our old selves. This should create in us a new attitude of patience and kindness, rooted in a regard of thankfulness for Christ. In this way, we are to be motivated to do more unto Christ. To love as He loved us. To give Him our sincere thankfulness for the ultimate selflessness which He bestowed upon our undeserving selves.
3: In the reasons above, the reasons for our hope in Him, we find even more. We thank Him for the unique gifts and opportunities to which He grants us. For the events and times that He places us in, for His own glory. Each of these things, for trial or opportunity, blessing or trial, He has provided the means to finish it, and the free will to encounter it, ourselves, through God.
We do not have the right to hate our circumstances. Our bad days do not offer us the means to be frustrated or angry, vengeful or jealous, distrusting or dissatisfied in our thoughts. It is not our place to have discontentment with the opportunities which God has appointed. Our circumstances, bad or good, are brought by our choices. They are viewed in positive or negative ways, depending on how we have chosen to see them: through the eyes of Christ, or the sinful hearts of men.
Colossians 2:6-7 read “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.”
There is no shortage of the things that the Lord is deserving of praise from. He remains in control. We are to be grateful in all things, transformed in Christ, seeing each day as a gift from the Lord. We are not deserving of anything, nor is it our right to any blessing in life. All is given by God. He alone is worthy.
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